888: Dim Sum a la Carte

Recently I went to Lunasia to try their dim sum. You order via a tick-off sheet and for the most part, you can expect “fresher” dim sum. Many reason the dim sum cart is a dying fad. Getting freshly steamed dim sum seems like a good idea but most people I know prefer the carts. There’s a certain nostalgia factor. My Noodles Partner is looking for a good carts restaurant and mentioned she wanted to try 888.

har gow

siu mai

888 is actually my go-to dim sum house for the lack of a better one around. It’s about in the middle for me and I’m still looking for the best dim sum (cart) restaurant. However, the glory days of this restaurant seems to be over. They didn’t seem to have as many varied dumplings as before and the ones we tried were just okay. I could tell my Noodles Partner was disappointed.

chiu chow fun gor

tofu sheets wrapped veggies

braised ribs

The har gow and siu mai were fairly standard. After having enormous ones recently, these seemed to be on the dinky side. The chiu chow fun gor was tasteless. I was saddened as it was my favorite dumpling at 888 years ago. Then we just had a barrage of average dim sum; bamboo wrapped veggies, ribs,wrapped beef balls, egg rolls, porridge,

wrapped beef balls

egg rolls

1000 year old egg porridge

I can’t help it if I love egg rolls. Another thing I loved years ago from 888 were the egg rolls. These were fine. The porridge and tofu pudding portions were also on the smaller side which caused the cart ladies to really push us to order more rather than giving us individual bowls to portion it out. I actually enjoyed the wrapped beef balls. It’s usually not my favorite thing but these were moist and bouncy (Okay, JGold, I won’t make a balls joke). Ooops, I just did.

sticky lotus wrapped rice

fried taro puffs

Chinese broccoli

Things were picking up with the loh mi gai (sticky wrapped lotus rice) and taro puffs. The puffs were stuffed with creamy mashed taro and whole shrimp. We also had to get two orders of the shrimp cheung fun (shown with the Chinese broccoli).

tofu pudding

Some of the dim sum houses I’ve been to barely give you any of the sticky sweet ginger syrup to go with the tofu pudding (dofu fah). We ordered extra to our regret. The pudding is quite sweet enough on its own.

Overall, you go to 888 because it’s affordable and now that it’s not as popular as other dim sum houses, there’s virtually no wait.